Inevitably I will get this day one, because I have like 1200 hours in various versions of Skyrim, and God knows how many in the other ES and the Fallout games.
Ya know what, I’ll go out on a limb and be the optimist.
I think Starfield is going to be badass, at release.
Now, I think I’m general I’m probably less critical than most folks here about most games, or at least in able to appreciate flawed games more than some… I’ve never had to much trouble just dealing with jank to appreciate the cool parts.
But I honestly think that this game might be something special.
Every Bethesda mainline game has been special since Morrowind. Oblivion, Skyrim, F3, and F4 were all groundbreaking awesome games. And yeah, janky and buggy at launch. I expect Starfield to continue that trend.
1200 hours? That’s barely enough time to select and get all the mods to play nice with each other.
I wonder if the Bethesda model will veer into Ubification at all.
Good lord, let’s hope not. I wouldn’t wish the Ubi-game on anything.
This would be funny if it wasn’t so true.
If BG 3 is coming out a few days before Starfield, then it would probably be wise to just play BG3 and let Starfield cook for a while. It will probably not be long enough for someone to create a mod to fix the inevitable shitty UI.
The reason that Bethesda open world games hold a special place in my gaming heart is they give me a huge, living open world with stuff going on all around me in what appears to be a very dynamic way. They let me do their “stories” but they provide a LOT of stuff that reward pure exploration. I create my character in my mind and can play him in the way I think this character would behave. I LOVE Witcher 3, but my character is predetermined. I’m enjoying Elden Ring, but once I know there’s an ambush of some kind of creature in those bushes, they are ALWAYS there, even after I kill them (assuming I’ve rested at a point of grace or died, both of which I often do.) Bethesda open world games are unique in a way that makes them very special for me.
Honestly, I barely had any issues with Skyrim at release. Barely a few glitches, or maybe 1 side quest with problems. Maybe one crash?
My biggest grip back then was the console UI, I used a pc mod fixing it the moment it was out, which thankfully was done in a record time.
I remember the shadows crawling all around the screen, lots of graphical issues with Skyrim on release. Not game breaking by any means. It was also janky as hell of course, and the console UI was a problem but skuUI came out really quickly.
I had the glitch where one of the NPC quest-givers would duplicate and follow you around every time you fast traveled. Funny at first to see 20 dudes stumbling after you everywhere but the game eventually choked up after around 50 clones.
That was my best skyrim glitch video. The guard making the comment about it being a “boring post” right after still cracks me up.
I’d never seen that one. Reminds me a bit of that hilarious “swingset glitch” from GTA IV. That was some funny sh*t.
Same - no real issues that I recall.
And this - Its such a great living world, compared to say, Ubisofts worlds, which I also really like - But Bethesda makes way better enviromental storytelling, and has tons of little stuff scattered all over the place - Most of their games have been immersive as nothing else out there.
Yeah, Elden Ring has an AMAZING world. I’m really enjoying it so far. But I’ve never felt the need to look up Youtube videos and Wikis to know what to do in, say, Skyrim, whereas Elden Ring requires and expects you to do that. Most of the quests in Elden Ring are impossible to do without looking up what you’re supposed to do and where to do it (I’m in the last stages of Ranni’s quest, and there is no way in hell to do that without looking things up.) That, and the rest of every creature and being in exactly the same place once you die or rest, and the try 30 times to beat a boss really makes part of it feel like an arcade game to me. In Skyrim, I never looked anything up, it was pretty specific in what you needed to do for the quests, and the world was extremely dynamic. I’m not saying Skyrim is a “better” game than Elden Ring, or vice versa, but for my style, I’ll take the completely open world explore to your hearts content and create your own story in your mind role playing world of a Skyrim.
And this is Todd Howard’s main push as lead from what I understand. He’s been that way through multiple games now. I think there is a story, or perhaps a tall tale, of a disabled fan that sent in a thank you after one of their games because the fan could never actually go to a stream or pond or lake and splash around, or swim or whatever, but they were able to do so in game and it brought them great joy. I’m probably murdering that quote, does anyone else remember that story?
In fairness, Skyrim did give you quest markers. Like to the exact item you needed or door you needed to go through.
Also I did look up a lot of quests simply because they were bugged and I needed a work around. To this day, that vampire quest in Morthal, when you want the father to talk to the ghost girl, he almost always gets stuck trying to walk to the grave area.
Australia is apparently rating Starfield Restricted due to violence and drug use. But hey, very little sex and nudity so whew, dodged that bullet.